Do you live in or near Penguin and have a spare room? If you can accommodate a permaculture-minded guest (or two) for the period 9-12 March (or possibly a few days either side of that), we would be very appreciative – you do not need to be attending the Convergence yourself. We even have someone who is prepared to offer return accommodation in her home country of Mongolia. If you are interested please contact coordinator@nwec.org.au

(This event is funded by the Australian Government’s Better Access to Palliative Care across Tasmania Program, through the Tasmanian Association for Hospice and Palliative Care ‘Networking End of Life Care’ Project.)

Music among the tombstones will showcase Penguin’s heritage like no other event has previously ever done. It is unique across Tasmania and indeed Australia according to Mr Google. A musical tribute to life.

A rare event, uniquely orchestrated – all music, no speeches. And in one of only three heritage cemeteries in Tasmania’s North West.

Cemeteries house and preserve as well as open the gateways to a community’s history like no other repository can.

People are invited to meander among the 1800 burials entertained by a variety of performances:

Pipers from the Burnie Highland Band

Colorado flautist Coty Dennis

Violinist Madeleine Hartley

Ulverstone vocalist Christine Barstad, and

Rosebery vocalists Kerrie Maguire & Geoff Lliff.

Each performance will showcase a particular tombstone or landmark:

Eliza Ann Hales, the first recorded burial

The centenary-old mystery of the cemetery’s Irish unknown

The Rowthorne obelisk, a father’s memorial to his son killed in France in WW1

A convict burial

Penguin’s academic historian Lloyd Robson, and

The memorial garden dedicated to the tens of the cemetery’s unnamed babies and children.

The spectacular will end with the beautiful and moving butterfly release overlooking Bass Strait.

So many of the tombstones are badly decayed, and many a burial has no tombstone. Consider adopting a grave.